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December turned Denver into a giant snow globe, sealed off and insulated from the rest of the world -- but with a whole lotta shaking going on.

Especially at the corner of 11th and Speer Boulevard, where Bronco Darrent Williams was shot dead early New Year's Day. He was in a stretch Hummer limo with other people who'd been partying at Shelter, the nightclub on Broadway where Williams and "some of your favorite Nuggets and Broncos" -- including Tatum Bell, D.J. Williams and Brandon Marshall, as well as J.R. Smith and DerMarr Johnson -- had been the hosts of the third annual Safari New Year's Eve party. "Guaranteed to have a good time," promised the e-mail invite from the promoters, 3DEEP Productions, at "one of the hottest clubs in Denver history."

They had no idea how hot it could get.

3DEEP is a partnership between Francois Baptiste and Alvin LaCabe. If that last fellow's name sounds familiar, it should: His father is Alvin LaCabe, Denver's Manager of Safety, the position that oversees the Denver Police Department -- which is very busy right now trying to solve the murder of Darrent Williams. -- Patricia Calhoun

Patricia Calhoun co-founded Westword in 1977; she’s been the editor ever since. She’s a regular on the weekly CPT12 roundtable Colorado Inside Out, played a real journalist in John Sayles’s Silver City, once interviewed President Bill Clinton while wearing flip-flops, and has been honored with numerous national awards for her columns and feature-writing.